love;
enzymes throwing flares
for Archimedes.
Even Proust, endorphin-poor,
was gifted sparks of stinging joy
from chemistry â atom-rich
lit-words;
while Einstein
had a Bunsen in his brain.
E ARTHQUAKE
I was dreaming
when she broke her plate, dreaming
fragmentally, coupling infant and old, smelling
sugar burning and my fatherâs gorgonzola,
resigned, primed - and she shook me
less than she did
the chimneys. Already
I was underground!
          It was easy then
to offer my sprung neck with the dying
calm of a trapped gazelle â even
with froth.
          But as suddenly she stopped (like
Danielâs lion) and chance was gone.
There was no end
and no substantial harm.
I had to find my shoes â perhaps a comb â and
follow them down, down,
until we hurried out to
reach the sanctuary of night.
          I looked up, up
at the frozen stars,
and focused on the cluster that
warmed me all those years ago.
I thought that they might know,
from their vantage point, whether
I was riding on a blue, revolving hearse, whether
they could cut me free.
S INCE T HEN !
I have always trusted in silence
To explain. No, perhaps not always but
Rather since the present never is and words
My mouths have uttered have uttered up a fence;
Since then!
I should have known from boyhood
When lemons shared were sweet, when
Chicken talk cut silent for a nimbus or a
Hawk. Then, of all times, I should have understood;
Since then!
As when the desperate bucking stopped and
Slowing calm brought sorrow joy and now
Was palpable as passing air and we were poised
As one. That was when to mute and make a stand;
Since then!
Or even now when now is not and Helen
Leaves with planes arriving, leaves us Paul to take
The driving, I must entrust the gone to silence
To still the peptide hurt of when;
Since then!
T HREE
Sevenths
B IRCH S EED
No secret can be kept from flung birch seed when
the wind is up to it, when the irascible wind bends
Frost branches till they cower low,
holds them so, then
lets them go.
Like Roman catapult it sends
the seed, like crazy grain it scatters round,
like whale sperm it sprays the ground;
and we are left to stop the nose
to wax the safe before it knows.
But still it penetrates the darkest, darkest spot,
where mould stays moist, where archived thought not
folded in and hidden like a blush, not
coded locked, may find that it has won and we have got
no secret kept, no secret yet that we can take
from flung birch seed when the summer blows,
when it really blows, and flowers break.
G UY F AWKES
Exempt, absorbing blue,
devoid of all but filtered light,
the sky looked down
impartially, and drew
the faintest veil over night.
It witnessed, without
affect, and without the
prerogative of right,
a bird attached to fireworks
take flight, explode,
and then ignite.
M OTHER A ND C HILD
Staring from an oscillating face,
unprotected and pocked
by the arrows of expanding time,
the moon has no memory
of birth. It was burst from the
belly of a blasted earth, and held,
umbilically,
by a motherâs mysterious force.
She of course is losing
her grip, but imperceptibly,
(her foetus wonât snap free):
Sheâs tilted with pride
and drugged by monotonous spin.
It will take an infinite warp till
she sees his face
recede with the diminishing
pull of the tide.
T HE T OSS
If Death insisted that you choose
between breathing out and breathing in
harmonicas would argue that you couldnât lose,
flutes that you couldnât win;
but harps would say that you need no breath,
would see no gain from either choice,
for they have donned the shrouds of Death
and stay suspended in its voice.
A CT T WO
The moon subsumes the sun,
surreptitiously, like a phagocyte
a mite, dimming day into night,
using tentacle, not bite,
choosing fear before fright
enzymes throwing flares
for Archimedes.
Even Proust, endorphin-poor,
was gifted sparks of stinging joy
from chemistry â atom-rich
lit-words;
while Einstein
had a Bunsen in his brain.
E ARTHQUAKE
I was dreaming
when she broke her plate, dreaming
fragmentally, coupling infant and old, smelling
sugar burning and my fatherâs gorgonzola,
resigned, primed - and she shook me
less than she did
the chimneys. Already
I was underground!
          It was easy then
to offer my sprung neck with the dying
calm of a trapped gazelle â even
with froth.
          But as suddenly she stopped (like
Danielâs lion) and chance was gone.
There was no end
and no substantial harm.
I had to find my shoes â perhaps a comb â and
follow them down, down,
until we hurried out to
reach the sanctuary of night.
          I looked up, up
at the frozen stars,
and focused on the cluster that
warmed me all those years ago.
I thought that they might know,
from their vantage point, whether
I was riding on a blue, revolving hearse, whether
they could cut me free.
S INCE T HEN !
I have always trusted in silence
To explain. No, perhaps not always but
Rather since the present never is and words
My mouths have uttered have uttered up a fence;
Since then!
I should have known from boyhood
When lemons shared were sweet, when
Chicken talk cut silent for a nimbus or a
Hawk. Then, of all times, I should have understood;
Since then!
As when the desperate bucking stopped and
Slowing calm brought sorrow joy and now
Was palpable as passing air and we were poised
As one. That was when to mute and make a stand;
Since then!
Or even now when now is not and Helen
Leaves with planes arriving, leaves us Paul to take
The driving, I must entrust the gone to silence
To still the peptide hurt of when;
Since then!
T HREE
Sevenths
B IRCH S EED
No secret can be kept from flung birch seed when
the wind is up to it, when the irascible wind bends
Frost branches till they cower low,
holds them so, then
lets them go.
Like Roman catapult it sends
the seed, like crazy grain it scatters round,
like whale sperm it sprays the ground;
and we are left to stop the nose
to wax the safe before it knows.
But still it penetrates the darkest, darkest spot,
where mould stays moist, where archived thought not
folded in and hidden like a blush, not
coded locked, may find that it has won and we have got
no secret kept, no secret yet that we can take
from flung birch seed when the summer blows,
when it really blows, and flowers break.
G UY F AWKES
Exempt, absorbing blue,
devoid of all but filtered light,
the sky looked down
impartially, and drew
the faintest veil over night.
It witnessed, without
affect, and without the
prerogative of right,
a bird attached to fireworks
take flight, explode,
and then ignite.
M OTHER A ND C HILD
Staring from an oscillating face,
unprotected and pocked
by the arrows of expanding time,
the moon has no memory
of birth. It was burst from the
belly of a blasted earth, and held,
umbilically,
by a motherâs mysterious force.
She of course is losing
her grip, but imperceptibly,
(her foetus wonât snap free):
Sheâs tilted with pride
and drugged by monotonous spin.
It will take an infinite warp till
she sees his face
recede with the diminishing
pull of the tide.
T HE T OSS
If Death insisted that you choose
between breathing out and breathing in
harmonicas would argue that you couldnât lose,
flutes that you couldnât win;
but harps would say that you need no breath,
would see no gain from either choice,
for they have donned the shrouds of Death
and stay suspended in its voice.
A CT T WO
The moon subsumes the sun,
surreptitiously, like a phagocyte
a mite, dimming day into night,
using tentacle, not bite,
choosing fear before fright
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